Analysis: Concerns over Murders by Migrants ‘Put Michigan More Firmly in President Trump’s Corner’

Strategic National CEO John Yob, whose firm had some of the most accurate polling in 2016, suggests a pair of murders in Michigan, allegedly at the hands of illegal aliens, will drive Michiganders toward former President Donald Trump.

In a memo published Tuesday, Yob says the analysis was difficult to write given the circumstances, but notes it is necessary as a pollster “to determine the impacts of current events on our political system.”

“The immigration issue hitting home in West Michigan is going to fundamentally change the outlook of the 2024 election and put Michigan more firmly in President Trump’s corner,” Yob writes.

Yob predicts that the trend is likely to take hold in other states in the wake of “Biden’s failed immigration policies,” as it has in Georgia, where an illegal alien has been charged with murdering 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley in February.

Yob’s analysis comes on the heels of 25-year-old Ruby Garcia’s brutal murder in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As Breitbart News reported, Garcia was shot to death and left on the side of U.S. Highway 131.

Police have arrested 25-year-old Brandon Ortiz-Vite, an illegal alien from Mexico, for Garcia’s murder. He has been charged with felony murder, open murder, carjacking, carrying a concealed weapon, and felony possession of a firearm.

Ortiz-Vite had previously been deported from the United States in 2020 under Trump but illegally crossed the southern border again at an unknown date, becoming one of the millions of g0t-aways who have entered the country since 2021.

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“The issue of illegal immigrants murdering people in Grand Rapids is now a national story that will not go away any time soon,” Yob writes of Garcia’s murder.

Similarly, Yob notes the murder of 22-year-old Leah Gomez who was shot to death with an AR-15 in front of her 1-year-old daughter in May 2023 in Grand Rapids. In February, a jury found Luis Bernal Sosa, a 27-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, guilty of murdering Gomez.

Gomez, like Ortiz-Vite, illegally entered the U.S. as a got-away.

“Suburban families, even as far north as West Michigan, are now finding out that the open southern border is in their backyard — and they don’t like it,” Yob writes. “They are about to hear about it over and over again in the media.”

Yob writes that Trump “single-handily and successfully realigned the electoral makeup” of Michigan in the 2016 election, bringing in working class voters and union households who had long been part of the Democrat coalition. This realignment ensured that Trump became the first Republican to win the Wolverine State in a presidential election since 1988.

“He overperformed in blue-collar areas of the state such as Macomb County, Mid-Michigan, and Northern Michigan,” Yob writes. “He earned the votes of autoworkers and working families taking that coalition away from the Democrats and leaving them as the liberal elitist party of the East and West Coasts.”

At the same time, the political realignment also led to Trump underperforming in Oakland County in the southeast sector of the state and in Kent County, home to Grand Rapids. These voters, often referred to as “soccer moms” in the early 2000’s, are ready to “come home” to the GOP as “security moms,” Yob writes:

The 2000 and 2004 campaigns included the famous term “soccer moms” to describe more establishment Republicans.  Candidates such as George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush prioritized and appealed to these voters with varying degrees of success despite the difficult issue of abortion.  Their strategy worked well in bringing traditional establishment West Michigan voters to the Republican column.  But they ultimately failed as statewide candidates in Michigan because of their underperformance with blue-collar working families.
[Emphasis added]

The massive problem at the border and corresponding media attention is now on the verge of turning these “soccer moms” into “security moms” in West Michigan and changing their perspective in the Presidential race. The heat of the immigration crisis is going to turn to a boil this week as attention builds on the sentencing of Bernal-Sosa and today’s arrest of Ortiz-Vite for murder. One case is a terrible tragedy, two cases is an unacceptable trend that voters will not easily accept.  Simply put, the immigration crisis is likely to move historically centrist Republicans in West Michigan who were torn in recent Presidential elections firmly into President Trump’s corner. [Emphasis added]

Specifically, Yob zoned in on voting data in Kent, Oakland, and Grand Traverse counties during the past two elections, which showed pronounced support for Democrats in 2020 compared to 2016. 

In 2016, Trump won Kent County with 148,180 votes to twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s 138,683 votes. However, in 2020, Biden beat Trump in Kent County by more than 20,000 votes, 187,915 to 165,741.

“Changing the electoral makeup of this single county in 2024 changes the outlook of Michigan, and the ripple effect in similar counties such as Grand Traverse and Oakland, puts Michigan firmly back in President Trump’s column,” Yob argues.

In Oakland County, northwest of Detroit, Trump lost to Clinton by some 54,000 votes. In 2020, the margin between him and Biden doubled to 110,000.

A similar trend occurred in Grand Traverse County, with Democrats gaining support from the 2016 election into the 2020 contest. Trump won the country in both cycles but by a much tighter margin in 2020. He bested Clinton 27,413 to 20,965, while he carried the county with 30,502 votes to Biden’s 28,683 last time around, per Yob’s memo.

“We were the first to see that Michigan was moving to Trump in 2016, and it is happening at a much earlier stage in 2024,” Yob told Breitbart News in a statement. “Biden’s dangerous immigration policies causing multiple murders in Grand Rapids could put Michigan out of reach for Democrats and President Trump back in the White House.”

A screenshot Yob provides in his memo of the RealClearPolling average before the murder of Garcia in Michigan showed Trump leading Biden by 3.5 percentage points, while six of the eight polls included in the average had Trump leading anywhere from two to eight percent, while the other two had him and Biden tied.

Immigration is likely to affect down-ballot ticket races in Michigan as well, particularly in the U.S. Senate race where the leading Republican candidate, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), is within two points of Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in a hypothetical general election matchup, according to an Emerson College/the Hill poll taken March 14-18, before Garcia’s murder.